Theos-Talk Archives (April 1995 Message tl00116)

>> true in most cases)?  Do you agree with Jung who suggests
>> that Eastern and Western approaches are not compatible?  Do
>
> Jung's own investigation of the Secret of the Golden Flower tends
> to suggest that there are common elements which exist in both
> traditions.

>Paul Gillingwater

In his introduction to The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation
(Evans-Wentz) Jung says "But I cannot help raising the question
of whether it is possible, or indeed advisable, for either to
imitate the other's standpoint.  The difference between them is
so vast that one can see no reasonable possibility of this, much
less its advisability.  You cannot mix fire and water.  The
Eastern attitude stultifies the Western, and vice versa." and
also "Instead of learning the spiritual techniques of the East
...  it would be far more to the point to find out whether there
exists in the unconscious an introverted tendency similar to that
which has become the guiding spiritual principle in the East.  We
should then be in a position to build on our own ground with our
own methods.  If we snatch these things directly from the East,
we have merely indulged our Western acquisitiveness, confirming
yet again that 'everything good is outside', whence it has to be
fetched and pumped into our barren souls." The article itself is
one of Jung's best.  In it he equates the collective unconscious
with buddhi, for example.

To address your point, yes there are common elements, but there
are also enough differences to make Jung advise us to form our
own techniques rather than to practice yoga and Buddhist
meditations directly.  One of the techniques that employs Eastern
visualization together with Western action and verbalization is,
IMHO, magic.

 Jerry S